SE actors chronicle life in production
by Brian Shults, se news editor

    The Heidi Chronicles, the SE Campus current drama production, centers on growing comfortable in the opportunities time provides each individual.

   Written by Wendy Wasserstein, the play opens tonight at 8 p.m. in the Roberson Theatre.

   The play continues through Saturday, April 20, with 8 p.m. performances and a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee.

   Heidi is a carefree youth transitioning to a working adult.

   Now, add being a woman during the liberation movement and then ditching the love era for the high-octane ’80s and the audience has a little bit of everyone in the cast of Heidi.
Karina Bustillos plays the title character Heidi.

   “‘All people deserve to fulfill their potential,’ Heidi says repeatedly but doesn’t know exactly what it means,” Bustillos said.

   Heidi struggles to find what makes a person complete.

   “She sees everyone around her making decisions and tries to tell herself she can do the same,” she said.

   In one scene, Lisa, played by Tamara Powers, absorbs the attention of a baby shower with her girlfriends.

   The mood fluctuates between the joy of the impending birth, to the whirlwind pressures of a career and John Lennon’s death, signifying a break from youthful liberalism to the skyscraper Reagan era of Wall Street power brokers.

vHeidi watches as her friends and she protest for the equality of women and subsequently move into adulthood.

   The characters are continuously trying to balance their desire for women’s equality with the desire for chivalry and romance from their relationships with a man, Bustillos said.

   Two male relationships permeate Heidi’s life: Peter Patrone, portrayed by Jason Hernandez, and Scoop Rosenbaum, acted by David Vieira.

   Peter has known Heidi since high school and is a cynical, successful doctor whom Heidi loves.

   “Peter is the guy she would be in love with if he were not a homosexual,” Hernandez said.

   “Heidi is awed by Peter because he’s alive and free. But she doesn’t know he is gay,” Bustillos said.

   Without being able to pursue a relationship with Peter, Heidi turns to Scoop for solace.

   Vieira said,“Over time Heidi and Scoop cultivate a real friendship.”

   When they first meet, they are just lovers. There is stupid banter between them.

   “We’ll talk about something small and see each other 10 years later and talk about the same subject because we have nothing to say to each other,” he said.

   Scoop, a magazine publisher, began his career publishing the leftist Liberated Earth News.

   But Scoop achieved more success when he published an ’80s power magazine, Boomer.

   He eventually settles for marrying Lisa, because Heidi will not marry him, settle down and have children, Powers said.

   “Lisa is willing to give up her job, be a mother and be a supporter for Scoop,” she said.

   Heidi’s resistance to be anyone’s crutch characterizes the Ivy League-educated art historian through the 20 years the play covers.

   Consequently, Heidi shifts from being a sometimes lonely woman to being a totally happy and independent character, Bustillos said.

   The play begins in the late 1960s and runs up until 1989, following Heidi through her encounters with 16 other characters, who all allude to some aspect of her personality.

   “All the supporting characters are stereotyped to make a point. It is about being yourself,” Craig Lee, director, said.

   “Many of the characters are gay, but there is no hidden agenda in it. Heidi reflects being a proud woman,” he said.

   Only eight students perform the 16 characters, a design of the playwright, Lee said.

   Other performers are Courtney Roland as Claire, Denise, Becky; Clint Niosi as Mark, Ray, a waiter; Jaclyn Townley as Molly, April, Betsy; and Kim Evans as Susan Johnson, Heidi’s best friend.

   Genevieve Croft is the stage manager.

   Evans remarked on her character’s relationship with Heidi.

   “Susan changes like the seasons. If there is a fad, she has to follow it. If everyone is going to be gay, she wants to be gay,” she said.

   “After time, Susan becomes a powerful businesswoman. She says, ‘I’ve been so many people I don’t know who I am,’” the actress said.

   Susan is not a stable person, and that instability creates a friendship where the friends feed off one another, Evans said.

   Vieira explained the traits of relationships in the play.

   “Heidi explores the enduring nature of relationships, not necessarily dating and marriage, but to see how people interact and connect, disappear and resurface,” he said.

   Niosi concurred.

   “It deals with sociological changes that were part of our parents’ world, which they have been affected by. But they are still the same issues we see in ourselves and our peers as people change,” he said.

   The 20-year span the play covers causes interactions with several historical events.

   The rehearsal schedule was generous, giving time for the actors to work on their parts by researching the historical and political movements of the time.

   From the anti-war Vietnam era to the end of the Cold War, the time frame allowed the actors to develop into the characters without having to jump into them blindly, the director said.

   Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles made its own mark in history by receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 and a Tony Award for best play.

   The play is free for TCC students, faculty and staff, $5 for adults and $3 for senior citizens and students from other schools.

   For box office information, call 817-515-3599.